Patti Smith Tribute Trivia
Patti Smith Tribute Trivia by Roxanne McDonald
 |
Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand. ~Patti Smith |
Patti Smith is the last person easily compartmentalized…or reduced to a list of trivia. But leaving the more expansive and exploratory pieces to those like thatof Greg Villepique of Salon.com, Steven Foehr of Shambhala Sun, and Dave Marsh at Rolling Stone, I offer highlights of the life and person–to place a special lens of interest on the ballsy, bombastic, and literary genius of a madwoman as she lived her own statement, came to know suffering as she defined it, and turned to saving others from such suffering…with the very poetic hand she suggests be extended to others suffering, now.
Accolades/Awards
Was the inspiration for SNL character, Candy Slice,” developed and performed by Gilda Radner.
First to sell out a poetry recital at CGBG’s—where Smith first played in 1975 and for which Smith would perform the closing night farewell (2006).
2005 Patti Smith presented with the Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres—one of the highest of cultural honors in France.
2007 [March 12] Patti Smith inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She dedicated the honors to the memory of her late husband, Fred.
Ranked #15 on 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll list by Vh1.
Voted 47th Greatest Artist in Rock ‘n’ Roll by Rolling Stone.
Patti Smith, Mistress of Mystique
Patti Smith, Mistress of Mystique by Roxanne McDonald
|
Despite my disappointment in the geography included in the lyrics on Smith’s first album, I was and remain the opposite of disappointed in her songs. |
Patti Smith was the catalyst for my first exposure to Punk. The purist kind of Punk, that which comes with dignity of surviving the dregs, not the actual head-banging and mosh-slopping kind, that is… In fact, not only was my first Punk exposure by way of Patti Smith, my first Punk concert was headed by the doyenne of dirty Rock—at a theatre that was closing after many years of fame if memory holds, I think it was Winterland?).
Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself…and will likely do so, be all over the place, here, as I am still utterly smitten by the genius and mystique that is Smith.
I was at college in New Hampshire, was listening to popular, mainstream stuff—Frampton, for one—and a boy who was way ahead of his time and mine would turn me onto really brilliant works of artists, writers, poets, and musicians—Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen…. He gave me hot off the vinyl presses Horses. And as a writer, lover of lyrics and language, I listened non-stop for weeks.
One song that stuck me, struck me sideways was “Redondo Beach.” “I went lookin’ for you…you were gone gone.”
Well, up in those winter woods, I imagined what Redondo Beach must have held for Smith. I thought of how she would approach the “sweet young thing…humpin’ on the parkin meter, leanin on the parkin meter” (though these words were in “Gloria”). I tried to envision the water’s edge and the women all gawking. And tried not to understand the suicide….
